"If you're a fan of the original, there are references, flashbacks and the sweet tourism of nostalgia to enjoy which compensate for a paucity of plot. Boyle is a good filmmaker, but this isn't a good story.

"And if you've never seen Trainspotting, there's basically nothing here for you at all. If you have, it's worth visiting with Renton and the gang for a Where Are They Now '90s hit. But you might want to choose DVD."

"Danny Boyle's T2 Trainspotting is everything I could reasonably have hoped for - scary, funny, desperately sad, with many a bold visual flourish. What began as a zeitgeisty outlaw romp in the Uncool Britannia of the 1990s is now reborn as a scabrous and brutal black comedy about middle-aged male disappointment and fear of death."

"Perhaps it's too much to expect it to be as good as the original – it's not. Sometimes it feels a bit too enslaved to the first film and there are problems... Ultimately, T2 is a grown-up sequel made with refreshing and startling maturity.

"It's a sobering look at how your lust for life ultimately becomes corrupted and dragged down – not by drugs and youth's trigger happy desire for self-destruction – but by life itself."

"Reuniting Boyle with writer John Hodge, producer Andrew MacDonald and most of the original cast — top-billed Ewan McGregor reprises his breakthrough role of the charismatically rebellious Scottish drug addict Renton — this darkly larkish crime-flavored character-comedy will doubtless score very big on its skillfully-hyped UK-and-Ireland January 27 bow, but looks of niche interest farther afield."

"Despite topical references to social media and zero hours contracts, T2 understands it won't capture the youthful zeitgeist the way Trainspotting did.

"It drowns in large shots of nostalgia, regret and wasted lives. The sharp and funny script chooses to honour the characters by allowing them to mature disgracefully while still being sympathetic towards them. Take a deep breath. Choose cinema. Choose first class. Choose Trainspotting 2."

"T2 Trainspotting invites us to question our own life choices and how far we've or haven't veered from our own past. Sick Boy recalls sharing a needle with Renton the first time they took smack: "Your blood runs in my veins." Renton makes all those mistakes again because, ultimately, we can't change who we are.

"With a soundtrack throbbing with new sounds from the likes of Wolf Alice and Young Fathers and a dazzling update on Renton's iconic "Choose Life" speech, Danny Boyle's served up a film that unleashes a rush almost as satisfying as the original hit."

"It feels trite to observe that T2 Trainspotting is a more mature film than its junior self. Of course it is, but the problem is it doesn't feel wiser, just wearier. But maybe then again, don't we all?"

T2 Trainspotting opens on Friday, January 27 in the UK and hits the US later in the year.